Welcome to issue 229 of the ukrecruiter newsletter. 

CONTENTS

Visit http://www.careersinrecruitment.com for the latest recruitment industry jobs.

My Favourites

http://www.bbc.co.uk/weather/ and http://uk.weather.com - I like to be as up to date on the weather as possible - so I use both these sites.

http://uk.mcafee.com - For keeping up to date with virus threats  

http://www.moneysavingexpert.com/ - How to make your money go further - both online and off.  


Norma Prouse is Marketing Consultant at Revisit Design Ltd


Why not submit your 3 favourite web sites. See the guidelines at http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/articles.htm

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For more information, please contact Adele Poole, on 01635 527900 or email adele.poole@hotlizard.net.

You can also view further information on HotLizard products and services at http://www.hotlizard.net

Article One: Psychometric Product Review: LQ Metrics  by Louise Triance

Company Name: The TTSL Company Limited

Product Name: LQ Metrics

Website Address: http://www.lqmetrics.com

Description (provided by TTSL): Leadership Assessment psychometric testing and reporting products, developed to measure those characteristics most likely to determine the quality of an individual’s leadership behaviours.

Cost: No set-up fee. Licences dependant upon required usage. A typical report costs from £30 to £95.

Do you have to be qualified to interpret the questionnaires: No

Candidate Experience (guinea pig candidate was Cath): When I logged on to the do the questionnaire I was daunted to learn that it would “take a maximum of two hours”. The questions are split into 11 sections with the option to break in between. Once I got started I found it easy to understand what was required, however with the obvious question repetition and thought of being there two hours, I nearly gave up a number of times (maybe this is why the test providers state that many people complete it in two sections). Half way through the format changes and these questions make you really think about the statements being made, mainly as there is no obvious relevance. I was pleased to find that the questionnaire “only” took me 70 minutes to complete in total.

As well as receiving a feedback report I got a very detailed explanation of how they achieve their results. The layout of the report was easy to understand, being split into sections with supporting graphics. Each section has a clear explanation of what it will demonstrate, followed by a personalised statement of your measure and feedback. The comments included negative and positive points and identified development areas for specific role types which would help an interviewer look more openly at the candidate.

I thought the report was generally accurate considering my current employment and feelings.

Overview of Feedback Report: The report is 22 pages long and is made up of a summary report, followed by analysis of “7 clusters”. These include emotional intelligence, motivation and drive, creativity and strategic perspective. Overall the report is designed to assess general personality traits that relate to Leadership behaviours. The summary looks at each of the 7 clusters with a one sentence overview and “score” of either development need, normal, good, strong or excellent. The summary section also gives a team type rating with explanation and some “development recommendations”. Unfortunately, I thought the development recommendations were fairly weak and generic. These are split out into the 7 clusters. The report then goes on to look at the 7 clusters in detail. However, a lot of the information in this section is an explanation of what the individual elements of the clusters mean rather than analysis of the candidate’s personality; because the product doesn’t required accreditation/training the explanations are a necessary part of the feedback report. 


Summary
Whilst the areas measured within the report seemed to be an aid for recruitment selection I found the overall depth of the report a little disappointing. After a 70 minute (or up to 2 hour) commitment I’d have liked to see a more meaty and thorough report. It is worth mentioning that the report I got was the standard one – for some clients they offer more charts and tables (including ratings against particular personality scales). At around £55 for a “typical” client report it’s quite expensive but if you are looking for a purely leadership analysis it is worth investigating. 

Contact Details: Phil Dawes is the contact at The TTSL Company Limited) He can be contacted on 01636 611911 or by email at philip@lqmetrics.com


Louise Triance is a British Psychological Society level A&B trained assessor, conducting psychometrics on behalf of recruiters. For more information call Louise on 01635 254881 or email
louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk or visit http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/tests.htm

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Article Two: Just IT recruitment agency website review by Jonathan Spybey

Company Name – Just IT
Website Address – www.justit.co.uk 

Site description
An IT training and recruitment agency website.

Creative design
Just IT is a text heavy website with little in the way of design and corporate identity. The site consists of an unnecessarily complicated left side navigation area with 27 choices and much more streamlined main content area with 4 options - entry level, experienced level, corporate level and recruitment.

Ease of use
The left navigation is far too complicated to be of much use to the website. In fact it is possible to navigate almost entirely without ever using it. By only clicking within the main content area, and with judicious use of the browser back button, provides just about adequately access to Just IT’s services.

Relevant content
Just IT is a portfolio website – one that displays information about the company rather than displaying vacancies. It relies heavily on text – and a lot of it at that. The internet is not like printed media. It is much harder to read long passages online. Indeed, usability studies suggest that most people spend less than 10 seconds on each web page they encounter. When you consider that some of that 10 seconds is spent hunting for the next link to click on it becomes obvious that text heavy websites fail to communicate most of their content to online audiences.

Candidate and client functionality
The most succinct areas of the website are Clients area and the overview pages for Jobseekers (split into entry level, experienced level and corporate level categories). Communication is certainly better on these pages, though the general weightiness of the textual content on the website brings it down.

Online marketing
The company pays for sponsored links with Google. Whilst this may be helping to bring visitors to the website, attention should be given to improving the experience of the visitor once they are there.

Summary 
A complete redesign is urgently required for this website. It should be focussed on improving the experience of visitors once on the website – ensuring that information is communicated efficiently, with brevity and clarity.


Jonathan Spybey is Creative Director with Sien Web, a professional web design company offering high quality accessible websites and development services to clients across the UK and Internationally. Contact him directly at jonathan@sienweb.com or 020 8965 6138, alternatively see Sien Web’s services at www.sienweb.com 

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Want to use personality questionnaires? 

As a British Psychological Society level A&B trained assessor I can:
* Determine which psychometric test is most appropriate for your needs
* Conduct the questionnaire via the internet
* Give full written and verbal feedback

Call Louise on 01635 254881 or email louise@ukrecruiter.co.uk or visit http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/tests.htm

Don't Miss This

Discount on Strategies For Finding Qualified, Passive Candidates workshops from AIRS, London 
On November 8th and 9th, AIRS will be coming to London with two days of recruitment training. AIRS Search Lab 3.0 and two sessions of Googling For Candidates workshops are "packed with tactics and strategies that will take your recruiting and candidate sourcing skills to the next level". Email Roger Gillies at rgillies@airsmail.com and save 20 percent off of the price of each course. Quote ukrec.

UK Recruiter Discussion Forum - Are you using it? 
Don't forget to visit http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk/forum. Current topics on the site include "Selecting Recruiters", "Multiple Job Board Posting" and "The future of 3rd party recruitment". It is free to use the discussion board and you don't have to register to view messages. Visit the site; ask questions and share your knowledge

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Regards
Louise Triance
UK Recruiter http://www.ukrecruiter.co.uk - 01635 254881 (UK)

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